An excerpt from Jane Austen’s completed Sanditon

“It is only the wind, my dear,” Mr Parker said to his wife. “And think how much more fearsome it must be in the valley.”

At these words, however, the lashing of the rain on the roof grew louder and now came a shriek, as some part of the house broke loose.

Mrs Parker gasped and would rise, but Charlotte’s grip was firm. She would be strong for her hostess, although in truth she was quite frightened. She was used to the wind in Willingden, of course, for it would crest the top of their hill and moan, and yet it compared nothing to the storm this night. Her last image before the shutters were closed seemed to show the sea just outside the house instead of its quarter mile distance. She composed herself before answering: “Mr Parker is quite right, it is only the wind and cannot hurt us. What do you say, Mr Sidney?”

“Yes,” he said, with a smile, and his smile seemed to give no hint of anxiety. “It is full of sound and fury and signifies nothing. In fact, I think it is already spent.”

A flash of lightning that shone through the cracks of the shutters and an almost simultaneous boom of thunder gave lie to his observation.

“Or nearly spent,” he amended. Charlotte gave him a faint smile, which she begrudged immediately. She still felt the sting of his inadvertent slight, despite his earnest apologies. His remark about the “bumpkin nature of our country cousins” coloured her opinion. But how could it not be so? He had knowledge of so much of the world, moving from place to place whenever he had found “so much to bore oneself with the same people, the same buildings and the same pervading sense of ordinariness.”

He must have sensed something change in her manner, which he perceived as renewed agitation about the storm.

“Perhaps we should play a game,” he said. “Do you know Ghost, Miss Heywood?”

“What, Ghost in the Graveyard?” Mrs Parker asked. Charlotte felt her partner’s grip relax and also saw Mr Parker nod approvingly. He knew his wife’s fondness for games.

“No, I hardly think we can play that,” Mr Sidney Parker said, although he smiled at the thought of the childhood game and at the thought of Mrs Parker chasing them about her drawing-room and shouting “You’re the ghost!”

“No, sister,” Miss Parker said. “Sidney would have us play Ghost where we start a word with a letter and each player supplies another letter and the player who completes a word loses that round. We played this game when children. Sidney always won.”

“Oh yes,” Mrs Parker said, although Charlotte thought with less than enthusiasm. She suspected her hostess would prefer some simpler game like Bullet Pudding or perhaps a card game. However Charlotte approved of his suggestion for the mental occupation of Ghost should prove a superior divertissement. She thought, however, of an improvement.

“Perhaps we might play Ghost Magna,” she said, and was pleased when she saw his eyebrow raise.
“And how is that played?” he asked.

“Almost exactly the same, but the player can add a letter both after AND before.”

“That does sound fun and may give us an advantage over Sidney,” Mr Parker said. “His mind does move from one thing to the next and never back.”

“Then Miss Heywood should start, for it is her suggestion,” Mr Sidney Parker said.

She nodded and said, “Very well. I begin with ‘O.’ Shall we go counter-clockwise?”

She made that suggestion because then Mrs Parker would be next, making it an easy round for her.
Mrs Parker supplied the letter “G,” obviously relieved that she would not be challenged.

“Is that before or after?” Miss Parker asked.

“Oh, I don’t … after. ‘O-G.’”

Miss Susan Parker supplied “O-G-Y,” and Miss Parker supplied “L-O-G-Y.”

Mr Parker predictably prefixed another “O” and then Mr Sidney Parker said, “My apology, Miss Heywood, if you will accept it. ‘P-O-L-O-G-Y.’”

“I do not accept it, sir, for I can preface it with another ‘O.’” She smiled broadly at this and thought if she were still with long curls and he were her brother she would stick out her tongue at him.

Mrs Parker thought for a second, and then another, before she said brightly, “‘R-O-P-L’ … no, that is not right. ‘R-O-P-O-L-O-G-Y!’”

Miss Susan Parker made it “H-R-O-P-O-L-O-G-Y” and attempted to pronounce it, much to her own amusement. Miss Parker made it “T-H-R-O-P-O-L-O-G-Y.” Mr Parker supplied the “N” and Mr Sidney Parker sighed with mock tragedy and completed the word as “A-N-T-H-R-O-P-O-L-O-G-Y.”

“I appear to be the ghost,” he said ruefully.

“That is the ‘G’ for you, Mr Sidney,” Charlotte said, unnecessarily confirming what he’d already said.

“But in Ghost Magna, one must collect ten letters before one is out,” he said, betraying his knowledge of the variant.

“Oh Lord, is that true?” Mr Parker laughed. “We’ll be here all night.”

To which they all laughed and their laughter made them ignore the wind and the rain and the lightning and the thunder.